Where the Wild Things Grow
When botanist Mara Holt walks into a remote valley settlement with a pack full of rare seeds and nowhere left to go, she tells herself she's only staying long enough to assess the orchard.
That was before she met Cole.
In a world still rebuilding from collapse, Mara has spent three years doing what she does best - fixing things, documenting what matters, and keeping her distance. The Valley needs her expertise. Its people are warm, capable, and quietly refusing to let her remain a stranger. And Cole Navarro, the settlement's engineer, has a way of being present without requiring anything - which turns out to be exactly what she didn't know she needed.
Where the Wild Things Grow is a slow-burn post-apocalyptic romance about two careful people choosing each other carefully. About seeds saved for futures you can't see. About the difference between surviving and staying. And about what it means to put down roots in ground that will hold you.
For readers who love: cozy apocalypse, found family, competence as foreplay, slow burn with emotional payoff, and hopeful futures built by people who really know what they're doing.